ISlide, Inc.
Teaching Note
Case Overview
ISlide USA is the story of a nascent entrepreneur, Justin Kittredge, who uses his
experience and knowledge of an industry (the athletic footwear market) to start his own venture.
The case illustrates many of the concepts of Entrepreneurial Thought and Action – where an
entrepreneur starts with the concepts of Who am I, What do I know and Whom do I know. The
founder, Justin, is a former Reebok executive and college basketball player, who is passionate
about basketball and coaching young people. The case illustrates how Justin uses his
background as he attempts to build a company that exploits a niche that has not yet been
exploited by the big footware companies – he uses customization to break into the crowded
athletic footware industry with a unique athletic shoe product that he calls Islides. Mass
customization is a trend that is revolutionizing fashion, especially the athletic shoe industry, and
given Justin’s background, the case illustrates how he is uniquely positioned to start this
business.
Case Outline
The case begins with a chronicle of the life of the case protagonist, Justin Kittredge. As a
youth, Justin enjoyed a number of sports. By high school, he focused on basketball and played
for a prep school reputed to have a very strong basketball program during his junior and senior
years. After college, he landed a position with Reebok International; he climbed the ranks there,
spend a few years with another footwear company, then returned to Reebok as the Director of
Product Development for Performance Basketball Shoes. In that role, he interacted with top high
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school, college, and NBA players and coaches so had developed a strong network of basketball
players, shoe industry professionals, as well as Chinese manufacturing partners. While at
Reebok, Justin and his wife Lindsey, also started a non–profit focused on basketball called
Shooting Touch, which was in their mind a basketball peace corps. Their dream was to use
basketball to change the world.
In 2013, as Reebok decided to move away from offering basketball shoes, with a
lucrative severance package in hand, Justin decided to start his own footwear company. With his
years of work at Reebok, he had knowledge of the supply and retail aspects of athletic footwear.
He had contacts with Chinese manufacturers and the retail distribution network. With his
coaching experience, he had strong leadership, management and motivation skills.
Learning Objectives
This case offers a clear illustration for students to understand how they might conceive
and start an entrepreneurial venture. This case illustrates Entrepreneurial Thought and Action
(ETA) as espoused by Babson College where entrepreneurship is defined as:
The ability to organize resources, and provide the leadership to act on opportunities to
create social and economic value
Potential entrepreneurs can engage in ETA – by following the process below:
1. Consider a venture that you desire to create
2. Take stock of your personal resources that would help you with the venture – your skills
(who you are, who you aren’t, what you know) and your network (whom you know, who
you need to know).
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3. Begin to ask relevant questions that would help you achieve your goals
4. Take some action – do something that would help you understand if the venture is
possible, how successful it might be, or determine who you need to bring onto your team
to make your venture
5. Pause, reflect, and adjust (perhaps make changes in your idea)
6. Develop your plan and/or build your team, adjusting as you take actions and learn from
them
The ISlide case illustrates this process nicely. ISlide is a natural venture for Justin to start.
A former footwear executive, he knew the industry and was passionate about athletics. He was
also very creative in terms of leveraging interns given his lack of capital. Justin exemplifies
entrepreneurial leadership. Greenberg, McKone-Sweet and Wilson describe entrepreneurial
leaders as people who think and act differently to improve their organizations and the world.1
They argue that entrepreneurial leaders possess cognitive ambidexterity. They noted, “ELs use
both prediction logic and creation logic in their decision making. When goals and culture reflect
the past, ELs can apply analytical models to predict what should be done next. When the future
is unknowable and bears little resemblance to the past, ELs create the future though action and
experimentation” (G, M-S & W, 2011). The slide sandal market was new and largely ignored by
the larger footwear companies when Justin started ISlide. He exploited this underserved niche
and was able to grow his company through online sales to offer something completely new,
customizable slides. He followed “affordable loss” principles by not spending too much on
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advertising and instead, he used social media and word of mouth to spread the word about his
new product and concept, “stand in what you stand for.”
The case discussion can be started with a video from Chronicle – a local Boston area ABC
news show – that did a profile on ISlide and Justin. The link for the show is here:
http://www.wcvb.com/chronicle/all-noodles-all-the-timeislide–into–customized–
comfort/26666568. The ISlide story starts at 2:48.
There are five discussion questions at the end of the case which the students can be asked to
prepare and can be used to structure the discussion of the case in class.
1. Is Justin an entrepreneur?
2. Who is Justin? What does he enjoy? Where is his passion?
3. What aspects of his background can you identify that led him to start ISlide?
4. What resources did Justin use to start ISlide?
5. Who does Justin know? Who has he engaged so far to help him with his ISlide journey?
Is Justin an entrepreneur? Students can draw on what we discussed earlier in class to answer
this question. Most will say yes and the instructor can ask why. Students will respond that he
created a new product and a new business. In fact, the case suggests that he has created at least
Who is Justin? What does he enjoy? Where is his passion? Given the case facts, students
should be able to identify Justin’s work background, his passion for and personal experience in
playing basketball as well as his desire to make a difference in the world. His entire career prior
What aspects of his background can you identify that led him to start ISlide? Given his passion
for sports, especially basketball, and his experiences in the footwear industry, it seems like a no
brainer that his venture would involve a product or service geared to athletes. At this point, ask
students to think about other products or services that might make sense for Justin as he tries to
What resources did Justin use to start ISlide? In the ISlide case, we see an example of an
entrepreneur with an idea for a venture who applies the tenets of ETA. Justin noted that early in
his career, he made some investments which really paid off. He invested those funds in ISlide.
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Who does Justin know? Who has he engaged so far to help him with his ISlide journey? Justin
has a tremendous rolodex. Have students take a look at Exhibit 2 which lists the members of the
Course Usage
This case works especially well when used early in an introductory course of
entrepreneurship. After discussing the case, students could be asked to reflect on their own
background and consider the questions: Who are you? (What are you interested/passionate in?)
What do you know? (What skills do you have?) Who do you know? (What does your network
look like?) Who do you need to know? (Given what you might start, what should your network
look like?) Students can work alone or in small groups to explore possible areas for a potential
entrepreneurial venture.
ISlide Update
Since the case was written, ISlide has continued to grow and prosper. They have come
out with new designs of the ISlides and in summer of 2015 announced they have a license
agreement with the NBA to make ISlides with NBA logos.
Slam Magazine wrote, 2
SLAM has learned that ISlide, the custom slide company that is based in suburban
Boston and was founded in 2013, has reached a licensing agreement with the
NBA to produce official customizable NBA slides.
“As a hoop fan, I am ecstatic to work with the best league in the world,” ISlide
President Justin Kittredge—a long-time friend of SLAM, dating back to his days
at Reebok—told us exclusively last night. “As an entrepreneur and business
owner, it is surreal that less than two years in we have an opportunity like this.
We couldn’t be more excited to showcase NBA footwear like no one has ever
seen.”